Wednesday, April 30, 2008

"Speculators have always played a prominent role in commodities markets, but in the past year, they have literally overwhelmed them, causing a dramatic increase in trading volume, volatility and prices and disrupting many of the normal relationships between producers and end-users."

"The difference this time, however, is that even before it bursts, this bubble is causing economic discomfort for households and businesses around the world, and misery for hundreds of millions of hungry people who suddenly cannot afford a bowl of rice or scrap of meat."

Emphases mine.

Now. We just have to get that broadly understood.

Spread the quotes- cite the article.

And here is exactly the target- foundations, and universities-

"Many of these were the same hedge funds and hot-money investors who had gorged on sovereign debt of developing countries, tech and telecom stocks, subprime mortgages and commercial real estate and now needed a new thing to focus on. Others -- including, it is said, some sovereign wealth funds -- looked to commodities as a hedge against the falling dollar. But perhaps the biggest push came from pension funds, foundations and university endowments whose managers had all gone to the same conferences and read the same academic papers, suggesting that a basket of commodity futures would provide a good hedge against stock and bond market declines."

If you're an alum- let your college know you are concerned about the university financing famine. Do you contribute to a foundation? Same thing.

3 comments:

I've been showing my dad (wheat farmer, Washington state) the articles you've been including on in your posts. If you're curious, here's what he had to say:

"I was talking to the head of Northwest Grain Growers last week and he could have written this article. He thought that wheat should never have gone much over $10 and shouldn't be under $10 now. As funds get bigger and bigger they look for ways to make more money and the futures are the newest way. We farmers have often said that futures should be abolished or at least limited for only farmers to use. But as always, capitalist greed can create and it can also destroy. It sometimes feels that the producers of the commodities exist only to legitimize a basis for commodity futures trading. The traders on Wall Street make way more money off farm commodities then the farmers ever do.

Here is a tip: Invest in NH3 futures. With $6 corn and $8-$10 wheat, the speculators are driving the price skyward. Get out by the middle of August, though. Which August, I'm not sure."

How can this be legal if even the farmers are questioning the current prices? And when the commodities market collapses, in addition to everyone who already cannot afford basic food, are we going to wipe out the last remaining family farms? At some point, all we'll have left is giant corporations that control the world's food source. (And thanks so much for pursuing this issue, Greenpa)

Greenpa! I was so excited when I was driving home yesterday because on the CBC's radio program, 'As It Happens', they had an in-depth interview with a lady who was outlining in detail how futures trading is causing the spike in food prices. This is what the blurb on the CBC website said about the interview:

"FOOD CRISIS: FUTURES Duration: 00:07:16

Amid the global food crisis, where tens of millions of people have found themselves unable to pay for food -- there is another crisis of sorts:

Determining the exact causes of the surge in food costs. Today, the House of Commons debated the impact of biofuels as an alternative energy strategy. That's besides the debates already underway about shrunken harvests, the declining U-S dollar, climate change, an increased middle class in China and so on.

Miss Anna- the trick is to get the farmers to SCREAM about it. The fact that it IS legal, does not mean it SHOULD be. They just sneaked it in, via political appointees- it never went through any legislation. Get your dad mad! :-)

Teresa- yay! It DOES feel good when somebody picks up on it.

Sigh. But then: BBC today they go right back to: "Poor harvests, global warming, increasing demand and the transfer of food land to biofuel production have all been blamed as factors in the crisis."

The speculators of course already have denial machinery working- whenever somebody raises the topic, they do all they can to quash it. Of course- they're making huge amounts of money, every day.

And where does that money come from? The consumer- and the poorest people on Earth.

about me-

It's a play on Grandpa, and green, as in environmentally aware, and Pa, as in ... Pa. An actual grandpa twice, and a Pa three times.

67, kids from two marriages, currently with a 10 year old zooming around the house. The house is as advertised, a very small log cabin in the woods. Tiny. It's like living on a yacht; no closet space, which is maybe half of why #1 went away.

I've been living "ultra" green for 39 years. Off the grid always, business too. Electricity from solar; and a little gas backup in winter. Composting toilet, heat with wood. Not vegetarians; hunter/gatherer/gardener. Not opposed to people living in cities.

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Basic Green Practices in the Little House

1) Off the grid. 38 years. Solar electricity2) Limited power- house electricity has 4 golf cart batteries.3) Composting toilet. Outside. (eew, you do that indoors!?)4) No road to house. You gotta walk.5) No running water in house. Water pumped by wind.6) Showers solar heated; outdoors.7) Heat with wood. One stove in house-..8) Cook with wood 8 months, propane in summer9) Most of our fuelwood now is from trees we planted10) No refrigerator. 40 years, now. You don't need one either.11) Big garden.12) Eat locally when possible, not obsessive about it.13) No pesticide use ever, gardens or crops; not even organic (ok, except a little in the outhouse and the greenhouse...)14) Earth sheltered solar greenhouse (aren't they all solar??)15) Shut up about it. Nobody likes preaching.16. These are our choices- yours are yours.

Basic Practices On This Blog-

1) I do not have time to dig out all the references for you- if you doubt something I say here, google it immediately- and don't bug me if I'm off by a couple of degrees.2)"Eat compost and die" type comments will cheerfully be deleted. They won't even tick me off, I just feel pity. Really. So if I were you, I wouldn't bother. (Note to other bloggers- this requirement for basic politeness works- total # of mean comments deleted by me so far ~ 5; spammers deleted ~ 10)3) Long comments on posts are quite welcome; don't worry about it.4) I WILL try to answer questions, but it may take me a while to get to them.

5) I don't do memes. Sorry- fun, I know, but I really don't have the time.

6) I can't do email, either; I'm already drowning in the stuff from my other life; and I can't get into giving personal advice. If you want to contact me, just make a comment with your email address in it; I'll get back to you if I can.